Periodic Table Jeopardy

Symbols, groups, and the logic of the table itself - a periodic table review chemistry teachers can copy free and run with phone buzzers in minutes.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Element Symbols

$200
This is the one-letter chemical symbol for oxygen.
What is O?
$400
This is the two-letter chemical symbol for calcium.
What is Ca?
$600
This is the chemical symbol for potassium, derived from its Latin name kalium.
What is K?
$800
This is the chemical symbol for iron, derived from its Latin name ferrum.
What is Fe?
$1,000
This is the chemical symbol for lead, derived from its Latin name plumbum.
What is Pb?

Groups and Periods

$200
This is the term for a vertical column of the periodic table, whose elements tend to share similar chemical properties.
What is a group?
$400
This is the term for a horizontal row of the periodic table.
What is a period?
$600
Elements in this leftmost group of the periodic table, including lithium and sodium, are highly reactive metals with one valence electron.
What are alkali metals?
$800
Elements in the group on the far right of the periodic table rarely react with other elements and are known by this name.
What are noble gases?
$1,000
Elements in this group, including chlorine and fluorine, typically need just one more electron to fill their outer shell.
What are halogens?

Metals, Nonmetals, and Metalloids

$200
Most elements on the periodic table fall into this category, generally shiny, conductive of heat and electricity, and malleable.
What are metals?
$400
Elements in this category, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, are generally poor conductors and are often gases at room temperature.
What are nonmetals?
$600
Elements like silicon and boron, whose properties fall between metals and nonmetals, belong to this category.
What are metalloids?
$800
At room temperature, this is the only metal that is liquid.
What is mercury?
$1,000
This is the only nonmetal that is liquid at room temperature.
What is bromine?

Atomic Structure

$200
This subatomic particle, found in the nucleus, carries a positive charge and determines an element's identity.
What is a proton?
$400
This subatomic particle, found in the nucleus alongside protons, carries no electric charge.
What is a neutron?
$600
This negatively charged subatomic particle orbits the nucleus and is involved in chemical bonding.
What is an electron?
$800
This is the term for the number of protons in an atom's nucleus, which determines an element's position on the periodic table.
What is atomic number?
$1,000
Atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons are called these.
What are isotopes?

Elements in Everyday Life

$200
This lightweight, silvery metal is used to make soda cans and aircraft.
What is aluminum?
$400
This gas is lighter than air and is used to fill party balloons.
What is helium?
$600
This precious metal is used in jewelry and in electronics for its excellent, corrosion-resistant conductivity.
What is gold?
$800
This element forms the basis of all known organic life and also makes up diamond and graphite.
What is carbon?
$1,000
This element is the primary material used to make computer chips.
What is silicon?

History of the Table

$200
This scientist discovered the electron in 1897 using cathode ray tube experiments.
Who is J.J. Thomson?
$400
This New Zealand-born physicist's gold foil experiment revealed that atoms contain a small, dense, positively charged nucleus.
Who is Ernest Rutherford?
$600
This is the heaviest naturally occurring element on the periodic table, key to the development of nuclear power and weapons.
What is uranium?
$800
In 1937, this element became the first ever created artificially rather than found in nature, filling a long-standing gap on the table.
What is technetium?
$1,000
This American chemist co-discovered plutonium and several other transuranium elements, and later had an element named after him.
Who is Glenn Seaborg?

Final Jeopardy — Leaving Gaps

This Russian chemist published a periodic table in 1869 and left gaps in it, correctly predicting the properties of elements not yet discovered.

Who is Dmitri Mendeleev?

How to run this board

Reading the table is the real skill this board tests: not just matching Na to sodium, but knowing what a group has in common, what a period number tells you, and how protons, neutrons, and electrons define an element.

Element Symbols is deliberately the easy warm-up column, salted with the sneaky Latin ones - Fe, Pb, Ag - at the higher values.

Keep a periodic table posted during the game or not, depending on what your quiz allows; the board plays fair either way, but decide before the first buzz and tell the teams which rules they are playing under.

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